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PayPal, which has been testing a point of sale payment system with Home Depot, plans this week to expand that trial and offer consumers a card linked to their PayPal accounts.
January 18 -
Yahoo stands out as the only major Internet brand without a payments service. That may change now that the company has hired Scott Thompson from PayPal Inc. to be its new CEO.
January 4
PayPal Inc. reported a jump in revenue in the fourth quarter, driven in part by mobile payments.
PayPal's parent company, eBay Inc., said Wednesday that the payments subsidiary's revenue rose 28% to $1.24 billion in the fourth quarter from the same period a year earlier. Its net total payment volume rose 24% to $33.4 billion from a year earlier and its mobile payment volume reached $4 billion, which eBay says is more than five times the volume it had last year.
PayPal is pushing hard to become a contender at the point of sale.
PayPal is also planning to offer a card this week that consumers can use to access their PayPal balances in retail stores, but the card is not necessary for point of sale transactions. Instead, consumers can use their phone number and PIN to authorize payments in person.
"We are well-positioned to compete in the emerging new retail environment," said John Donahoe, eBay's chief executive, in a press release Wednesday. "We are a different eBay today, no longer just an ecommerce leader but a stronger, more diverse global commerce company shaping the future of shopping and payments."
Donahoe is also running PayPal while eBay looks for a permanent president for the payments unit. Its last president, Scott Thompson,
"We have a strong bench of management talent and we won't skip a beat as we manage the transition at PayPal," Donahoe said in a conference call with analysts Wednesday.
EBay's revenue rose 35% to $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter from the same period a year earlier. Its net income rose 254% to $2 billion.